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Paul Allen Takes the Leading Role
Among Sports' Interactive Owners

By

David Sweet The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition

Updated April 29, 1998 11:59 p.m. ET

B asketball is not John Walker's sport. Ice skates, running clothes and a bike crowd his office; a Nerf hoop is nowhere to be found. Still, since he's paid by the Portland Trail Blazers to brainstorm cutting-edge ideas, he's always ready to toss up a few concepts from three-point range.

The team's director of information technology touts interactive press conferences, where fans can zap questions into an audio queue and expect answers within minutes; he imagines suspending 360-degree cameras in the team's arena, the Rose...